Travel is one of those things that will always be a part of my lifestyle. Whether I am flying on a plane to the other side of the world, or taking a quick road tip to the next town over, traveling has always been an interest of mine. This past week we took a quick trip to Blowing Rock, North Carolina. It is a three hour drive from Raleigh and had some of the prettiest views of the mountains on the way in. This was our first trip out to Blowing Rock, but it most certainly will not be our last.
Blowing Rock is a small mountain town full of charm, slow living and flowers on every street corner, one would be hard pressed to find a more quintessential charming small town than this. It truly felt like a living embodiment of Stars Hollow. We were visiting Blowing Rock in May which is not their tourist season as Blowing Rock is a ski town. According to one of the ladies I spoke with, their busy season is from October through January in which it can be very busy with a lot of tourists. But for the time while we there, it was very calm and quiet and we really appreciated the slow pace of our travels.
As mentioned above, the drive there takes around three hours, so we stopped off for a coffee about halfway there and even pulled off a couple of times at some of the overlooks along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The drive itself had beautiful mountain views as we got closer to our destination.
Downtown Blowing Rock
We left in the morning and arrived early afternoon. After arriving we stopped into a restaurant for lunch and then went over to the cafe to get a coffee. It was raining on and off that afternoon, but I didn’t mind as it seemed to make the whole experience ever cozier.
The one thing that I noticed immediately was all of the flowers. After looking into it I discovered that this is a town full of flowers that the town is always planting and maintaining. I have never seen so many flowers planted in a city outside of a botanical garden. They even have a bi-annual event called Mile of Flowers Tour which gives the public a chance to explore several public and private gardens in downtown Blowing Rock. However, an event is not needed to view the beautiful flowers that were planted all along the town.
We stopped into some shops along main street while walking around. One of my favorites was a shop called The Bee & The Boxwood. A pretty store full of home decor, stationary, soaps and jewelry…this one was such a treat to visit. I purchased one of their French soaps pictured below.
They had a beautiful table set up in the back. I will forever love a beautifully set table and I love to see them displayed in stores.
They also had a small shopping street that veered off right from main street. It was a cute corner off of the main strip with pretty architectural details and of course, more flowers.
I enjoyed shopping around at the many shops they had. I tried on a few things in some of the boutiques and even purchased this blue and white romper that fit me very well.
One of our last stops was in a boutique that was in a small purple house. Little details always makes for an elevated experience, and this place had all the lovely details.
And that wraps our first afternoon in Blowing Rock. There are so many towns in the mountains of North Carolina that we have yet to visit, but I am happy that we chose Blowing Rock as our first one since moving back. I really appreciated the small town feel and the friendliness of everyone we met and talked with. It’s a town that I found myself looking forward to visiting again throughout our trip.
For the rest of this week I will be sharing more posts about our trip such as our cozy AirBNB, our visit to Moses H. Cone Memorial Park for hiking, and what I packed for Blowing Rock, so come back as new articles will be posted daily this week.
Looks like a beautiful place! I love to travel too. I have a quick trip to FL coming up and then a week in Maine after that. I love that romper!
Thank you, Cari 🙂 That romper was a great buy, I was lucky to have found it as it was the only one left. You already know that I love Florida since I used to live there, so you’ll have a great time getting some extra sunshine. Maine is on my list to visit too as I have not been yet, but it looks so pretty there. Be sure to post some pics on Instagram of both places!